July 20, 2004
Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1727)
Leslie Fink
National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va.
(Phone: 703/292-5395)
Paul Taylor
Smithsonian Institution, Washington
(Phone: 202/357-2627)
Jeffrey Bendix
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
(Phone: 216/368-6070)
RELEASE: 04-232
NEW MARTIAN METEORITE FOUND IN ANTARCTICA
While rovers and orbiting spacecraft scour Mars searching for clues to
its past, researchers have uncovered another piece of the red planet
in the most inhospitable place on Earth -- Antarctica.
The new specimen was found by a field party from the U.S. Antarctic
Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET) on Dec. 15, 2003, on an ice
field in the Miller Range of the Transantarctic Mountains, roughly
750 km (466 miles) from the South Pole. This 715.2-gram (1.6-pound)
black rock, officially designated MIL 03346, was one of 1358
meteorites collected by ANSMET during the 2003-2004 austral summer.
Discovery of this meteorite occurred during the second full field
season of a cooperative effort funded by NASA and supported by the
National Science Foundation (NSF) to enhance recovery of rare
meteorite types in Antarctica, in the hopes new martian samples would
be found.
Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural
History involved in classification of Antarctic finds said the
mineralogy, texture and the oxidized nature of the rock are
unmistakably martian. The new specimen is the seventh recognized
member of a group of martian meteorites called the nakhlites, named
after the first known specimen that fell in Nakhla, Egypt, in 1911.
Like the other martian meteorites, MIL 03346 is a piece of the red
planet that can be studied in detail in the laboratory, providing a
critical "reality check" for use in interpreting the wealth of images
and data being returned by the spacecraft currently exploring Mars.
Following the existing protocols of the U.S. Antarctic meteorite
program, scientists from around the world will be invited to request
samples of the new specimen for their own detailed research.
Nakhlites are significant among the known martian meteorites for
several reasons. Thought to have originated within thick lava flows
that crystallized on Mars approximately 1.3 billion years ago, and
sent to Earth by a meteorite impact about 11 million years ago, the
nakhlites are among the older known martian meteorites. As a result
they bear witness to significant segments of the volcanic and
environmental history of Mars.
The U.S. Antarctic Meteorite program is a cooperative effort jointly
supported by NSF, NASA and the Smithsonian Institution. Antarctic
field work is supported by grants from NASA and NSF to Case Western
Reserve University, Cleveland; initial examination and curation of
recovered Antarctic meteorites is supported by NASA at the
astromaterials curation facilities at Johnson Space Center in
Houston; and initial characterization and long-term curation of
Antarctic meteorite samples is supported by NASA and the Smithsonian
Institution at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington.
Details concerning initial characterization of the specimen and sample
availability are available through a special edition of the Antarctic
Meteorite Newsletter, to be immediately released on the Web at:
http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/curator/antmet/amn/amn.htm
The edition also will be mailed to researchers worldwide.
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